This application claims benefits of Japanese Patent Applications No. 2002-137102 filed on May 13, 2002, in Japan, No. 2002-146671 filed on May 21, 2002, in Japan, No. 2002-156090 filed on May 29, 2002, in Japan, No. 2002-163461 filed on Jun. 4, 2002, in Japan, No. 2002-167386 filed on Jun. 7, 2002, in Japan, No. 2002-181753 filed on Jun. 21, 2002, in Japan, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in the event that the user takes a picture with a camera held with the hands of the user, the camera may be moved during exposure, leading to failure in photography, i.e., occurrence of blurring due to movement of hands. In order to prevent the blurring due to movement of hands, various prevention-of-vibration methods have been studied. The prevention-of-vibration methods include two phase, i.e., detection of vibration and countermeasures for the detected vibration.
Furthermore, the measures for prevention of blurring due to movement of hands can be classified into warning methods for giving the user warning of the movement, and methods for preventing deterioration of an image by blurring due to the movement of hands by controlling and driving photography lenses. As a warning method of the above-described methods, a camera which suppresses failure by blurring due to movement of hands by providing suitable display means has been proposed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-33870 by the present assignee, for example.
In general, these warnings are given to the user by lighting or blinking a display unit provided on the camera so as to let the user recognize blurring due to the movement of hands.
Furthermore, with the methods for vibration detection, examples employing a distance-measuring sensor are disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-165622, and previously, in Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. 62-27686. For example, with the method disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-165622, on the basis of output from two distance-measuring sensors with different sampling timing output signals, correlation computation is performed using the data near the point where the change of the output signals is great, and the offset of the image is obtained from the data offset amount wherein the correlation is the greatest, whereby detection of the vibration is performed.
Furthermore, methods, wherein the blurring state of the camera is detected and the exposure action is started at a timing where the blurring is small, are disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 3-92830 and Japanese Patent No. 2603871. The control for starting exposure at a timing where the blurring is small as described above, will be referred to as xe2x80x9ctiming controlxe2x80x9d, or xe2x80x9crelease timing controlxe2x80x9d hereafter.
The camera according to the present invention comprises a sensor array wherein multiple pixels are arrayed in the base-length direction, a focusing unit for performing focusing of the camera based on the image output from the sensor array, a first detection unit for detecting the movement of the image signals in the base-length direction, a second detection unit for detecting the change in a predetermined pixel signal of the image signals over time, and a vibration detection unit for performing vibration detection based on the output from the first and second detection units.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The features and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.